


The Empty Center

by MenaceAnon



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Jefferson Pamphlet, M/M, experiments in storytelling, get your aNGST HERE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10004057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MenaceAnon/pseuds/MenaceAnon
Summary: No.Have you read this?(Based on Exadorlion'sJefferson Pamphletart. Originally posted on Tumblr.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exadorlion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exadorlion/gifts).



> Come visit me on Tumblr at [MenaceAnon](http://www.menaceanon.tumblr.com) for bonus content! Like ficlets that won't be posted here (or longer ones (like this!) that will appear there first), plus a WIP list for longer, more involved works, like [Scenes from a Conflagration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9079567) and the upcoming Reincarnation Roadtrip Jamilton fic.

_“Have you read this?”_

_In his dream, Thomas sets his quill down and gives James his full attention at once – notices his expression, like a closed door, forbidding and inscrutable. As though it will change the outcome of this scene, dream-Thomas goes to him immediately._

 

  
(That’s not how it happened. Thomas had been distracted, writing; overhot on an August day and he’d had no reason to think anything of James standing in his doorway holding a pamphlet.

A breeze curls gently through the open second-story window, rustling the contents of Thomas’s desk.

James does not come closer for a long time.

“Have you read this?”)  
  


 

_Air batters through the second-story window, relentless and blistering hot, carrying papers, so many papers, enough to darken the room. They curve like birds around James to buffet Thomas, and pile at his feet._

_They read: In which the charge of speculation against Alexander Hamilton, late Secretary of the Treasury, is fully refuted._

 

  
(James slaps the neatly folded pamphlet on his desk and Jefferson’s fingers curl toward his palms as the first icy drop of dread slips down the knobs of his spine one-by-one.

 _No_.)

 

  
Have you read this?

_The walls of his office peel away and he is standing in the road, standing on a stage, standing in front of his country. Standing in front of James, who only watches, silent._

_There’s so much paper._

_“Help me. Help me hide these. James, no one can see these!”_

_He falls on his knees, scrambling to collect every sheaf. For every one he collects more are beneath it, more and more and more. His own face is on them, ink sketches of him in ecstasy, and black lines describing the familiar set of Hamilton’s mouth as he moves over Thomas, in Thomas. He looks so triumphant._

_“Help me hide these.” Thomas holds them, as many as he can, pressing the evidence of his indiscretions to his chest. “Please. Please,” he says and looks up–_

 

  
(The thing is descriptive, damn near pornographic. Hamilton spared no detail, offering times, places, the content of meals and conversation. He has published the _letters_ –

Timelines snap briskly into place.

James watches Thomas with the full power of his attention, the dangerous lock of canny black eyes that miss nothing. There’s an unfamiliar harshness to his voice as he says, “I need you to tell me. I need you to _tell me_ if this is true.”)

 

  
_Hamilton stands above him, looking down on Thomas, one corner of his mouth twisting up in the coarsest of apologies. Thomas feels the weight of James’s gaze, can see him from the corner of his eye and tries to stand, tries to turn his head to look, but Hamilton catches him by the hair, places a hand on his shoulder and presses down. Pins him in place and steps closer, close enough that Thomas can smell him, can feel how warm he is. Close enough that Thomas trembles with wanting to be closer._

_“Not here,” Thomas whispers. “We’ll be seen.”_

 

  
(“This calls into question every decision you have ever made. Your pillar stands at a corner of this nation’s integrity, and you have put your feet in sand! And this party, _our party_ –” Madison’s party, the one he came to from Hamilton’s side, the one he prodded Jefferson out of retirement to lead, the one he has nurtured like a lick of flame on kindling, “you have shot it out of the sky, just as it takes flight.”

James says, “What were you thinking?”

James says, “You gave _him_ this power over you.”

James says, “I will have to fix this alone.”

James says, “You will never be president now.”

And then James puts the back of his wrist over his mouth, draws a rough breath, and leaves.)

 

  
_Hamilton catches Thomas’s jaw, tips his head back and brushes the fringe from his eyes. His kiss is delicate and cold, and his lips are dry, like paper._

 

  
(Thomas wakes, and rolls into the empty center of his bed.)


End file.
